Friday, August 15, 2014

Nader's Nattering

Ralph Nader once again is prowling the countryside saying
things that are not so much wrong as passe. He does this because he himself is
passe. Consumer advocacy, Mr. Nader’s specialty, reigns supreme everywhere in
Connecticut, which only a short while ago sent to the U.S. Congress the nation’s
first consumer protection senator, Dick Blumenthal, a little stiffer than Mr.
Nader, but made from the same ideological cloth.

Not having kept up with the times, Mr. Nader seems to be
laboring under the illusion that both major political parties in the United
States “continually reject even considering cracking down on corporate crimes,
crony capitalism or corporate welfare.”

Not at all true. In
fact, the fight against crony capitalism may play a significant part in the
Connecticut gubernatorial race this year.
Guess which one of the parties has rejected crony capitalism? Hint: It
isn’t the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Bailey. Is it not curious that the
sharp sighted Mr. Nader could have failed to notice that real capitalists have
an aversion to fake capitalists?

In acolumn that appeared in the Hartford Courant,
Mr. Nader, who appears to be supporting Jonathan Pelto for governor this year, asks
rhetorically, “What if they [both major political parties] reject a proven,
superior way to educate children? What if they refuse to consider an end to
unconstitutional wars or to a grotesquely twisted tax system favoring the rich
and powerful — to name a few of the major agenda items not even on the table
for discussion by the two parties?”

Apparently, Mr. Nader’s “superior way to educate children”
is the same as Mr. Pelto’s superior way to educate children -- which, for reasons
not mysterious, is the same as the education lobby’s superior way to educate
children. This method involves de-linking educational outcomes and salaries, the
rejection of testing to measure educational outcomes, and supporting without
question or hesitation extravagant union demands, however much they strain
taxpayers' ability to pay.

It may surprise Mr. Nader, but Steve Forbes -- to be sure, a
successful entrepreneur and therefore suspect --long ago supported a flat taxthat
even redundantly wealthy progressive tax supporters such as Warren Buffet would
pay. Other Republicans favor a fair tax. The idle rich love progressive
taxation because they alone are able to afford pricey tax lawyers to exploit a
tax code awash in exceptions, which is why, come to think of it, Mr. Buffet’s tax payments are less than those of his secretary.

Republican libertarian heartthrob Rand Paul, who most recently has called for the demilitarization of police,--
POLICE, mind you -- is the opposite of a warmonger, and the constitution has
played a major role in Tea Party gatherings. Here is Mark Steyn, an occasional stand in for the Rush Limbaugh radio program, ventilating on the militarization of police forces in the United States. One gasps at the thought that in
some important respects Mr. Nader may be at heart a closet Randian Republican.

Mr. Nader’s fire in his column is pointed in two directions:
at the Journal Inquirer newspaper, which from time to time has spanked his
backside, and at the notion that spoilers are spoilers.

Jon Pelto, for most of his life a Democrat, has entered this
year’s gubernatorial contest as an Independent. Some reporters and commentators
have noted that Mr. Pelto might well end up “spoiling” the campaign of Governor
Dannel Malloy, who prevailed over his Republican challenger, Tom Foley, in his
first gubernatorial campaign by an uncomfortable razor thin margin.

In preference polls, Mr. Malloy noted recently, the needle
hasn’t moved a jot since the first Malloy-Foley gubernatorial campaign. Mr.
Foley once again is challenging the sitting PROGRESSIVE Democratic governor and,
marvel of marvels, the notion has been bruited about that Mr. Pelto’s
Independent campaign might “spoil” Mr. Malloy’s progressive re-run against Mr. Foley
– meaning, Mr. Pelto may draw a sufficient number of votes from Mr. Malloy so
as to cause him to lose his gubernatorial election bid. A similar brief has
been filed against Joe Visconti, once a Republican and now an Independent who
is challenging Republican Party hegemony on the right. Among some eccentrics on the left, the irascible
Mr. Nader in particular, it has now become inadvisable to state the bald truth –
which is this…

Jon Pelto’s presence in the gubernatorial race is
designed to move Mr. Malloy further left, while Mr. Visconti’s presence in the
gubernatorial race is designed to move Mr. Foley further right. Neither of them
have a snowball’s chance in Hell of becoming governor. If either of them were
successful in actually winning the gubernatorial contest, the victor will have
been a successful spoiler.

The chief defect in Mr. Nader’s complex character is that he
does not know when to stop protesting; this is the disabling defect of the
entire Western World since the beginning of the Protestant Revolution during
the Enlightenment period. The protesters do not know when they have won; they
continue protesting until all their gains have been lost.

Mr. Nader lives in Connecticut, the most progressive state
in what used to be called, before the near total victory of the administrative
state, the American Republic. He has won. He should go home, pop a beer, watch
a ball game, and celebrate the destruction of the Republican Party in
Connecticut.